halloween

The excitement was driving us all crazy this afternoon - when will it get dark? the boys wanted to know...soon enough! Here are some photos of the boys leaving the house to trick or treat.

the tree, the number 6 and the letter U

This is my tree update! I know, fascinating, but it really looked lovely today.Jamie has been working on the number 6 and the colour orange this week. Here are his six teddies in a pumpkin patch.
This week Cameron has been working on the letter U - a tricky letter for crafts. After making an umbrella craft on Tuesday and a unicorn on Wednesday, Cameron's class made a scarecrow today! See below.

my favourite tree

school photos

Last week I posted about school photos. I tried to get a photo of Cameron and Jamie all dressed up for school on photo day because they both looked really smart. However, Cameron was in such a mood and did not want his photo taken. He pulled faces and ran away from me with the camera - so I didn't get a picture of him. Hopefully the school photos turned out well!
Meanwhile, here is Jamie on our front step with his new (rather large) schoolbag.

weekend roundup

Rather than separate posts...here is our weekend round-up.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANT! Saturday was Grant's birthday. The boys were more excited than Grant and jumped on the bed with presents in the morning.

On Saturday morning I took Jamie and Cameron to swimming and Grant stayed at home to pull the old oven out of our brick wall and install the new oven (that has been in our garage for 2 years). He had to do some brick work and our friend/neighbour, Dave, came over to help lift the new oven into the space. It looks great. Dave is also a cabinet maker and he is going to make us a border to put around the oven to make it look smarter. Grant was really happy to get this project done and really pleased he did it on his own. It makes our kitchen look more modern. I think the oven that Grant took out had been there for about 25 years!

Cameron did really well at swimming. It was his last class of the session and the teacher said that although he wasn't very good at listening to the instructors and paying attention in class he was a good swimmer and had no fear of the water so he could move up to the next class. He said he needed to work on his stroke technique. I was surprised that he was moved up a class but really happy because I think he enjoys the deeper water more.

Sunday morning Grant played football and I took the boys to Meadowlark. The fall colours are lovely. Here are a few photos.

letter I and number 5

An update on Sterling Baptist Church school this week. Cameron is learning about the letter I and tomorrow is taking in the book "Itsy Bitsy Spider". It was a hard letter for show and tell! Today he made this lovely Iguana.
Jamie is working on the number 5 and the colour orange. Here are 5 monkeys jumping on an orange bed. Jamie is a bed-jumping monkey too.
Tomorrow is picture day at school and I have smart shirts for the boys to wear. Watch out for the photos coming soon!

And finally, Cameron told his first joke today. At dinner tonight he said "oh mummy, why do humming birds hum?" and I said, "I don't know, why do they hum?" and he said "because they've forgotten the words!" He had such a laugh!

pumpkins!

We had such a great day on Sunday. We went to Leesburg Animal Park where they have a massive pumpkin festival with moonbounces, slides, hayrides and all sort of other things to climb on. Cameron and Jamie just loved it. There are also some animals that you can go and see and we just managed to fit in a small visit to the petting area before we headed home.

Here is Cameron checking out the massive pumpkins.
Jamie on the slides.
Cameron was also really sweet with Jamie all morning. He helped Jamie up the steep hills. Encouraged him to climb up the steps on the moonbounces and helped him to sit properly at the top of the big slides.
The afternoon was another pumpkin extravaganza. Ruby, Jean and Dave had a pumpkin carving party. The boys had a great time!

Saturday haircuts and balloons

On Saturday morning Jamie and I took Cameron to his swimming lesson and Grant tried to unpack and catch up on some work. The boys were so happy to see him after his week away.

We also took Cameron and Jamie to the hairdresser. Doesn't Cameron look funny with his hair all combed to one size!In the afternoon we went to the Honda dealership to look at minivans (save me now!) and they gave Cameron and Jamie enormous balloons to play with.You can imagine the noise and laughter that came from two little boys with big balloons!

the number 4 and the letter T

It's a busy week at Sterling Baptist Church school. Jamie's class is working on the colour yellow and the number 4. Look at his lovely chick with four yellow feathers and the number 4 on its head!Cameron's class is busy learning how to write the letter T. For show and tell Cameron took in a toothbrush and toothpaste today. He also made this lovely tiger. On another note, Cameron's birthday is coming up soon and I've been stressing about what to do for entertainment at his party. I know, I shouldn't get stressed about something so silly but I want all the kids to have fun and since it is a wintertime birthday the options are limited for outdoor play. Well, I've booked a moonbounce so I would like everyone to keep their fingers crossed that it will not rain on Sunday 2nd November when we have Cameron's party and all the kids can bounce away in the garden. If there's rain I'll need a plan B!

The other thing that I wanted to blog about was the change in season. It is really looking like autumn/fall outside and I just love the colour of the trees. This tree is on of my favourite in our garden. At the moment you can see just the top is tinged in yellow and orange but in a couple of weeks the whole tree will be ablaze of colour. I'll post about it again so you can see.Today the temperature is in the high 70s but it will be in the low 60s by tomorrow...fall is here!

mexico and the park

Grant is in Mexico this week and the boys and I are missing him already.

We've been at the park a lot because the weather is so nice. On Monday we were out with Anna, Oliver and Archie in Alexandria. Here is Cameron having his picnic lunch, sitting next to Ollie.Then you can see Archie and Jamie playing peek-a-boo around the tree.We also went to our new park. The boys love it because, as I think I mentioned before, the ice-cream van tends to make a regular appearance. It is also not very busy and the boys love playing on the big-kid climbing equipment with big stairs and long slides. Frightens me but they were having a great laugh chasing each other up and down the slide today. This is Jamie's determined face as he climbed up the slide the wrong way chasing Cameron! After a great time, Jamie was in tears leaving the park today "one more slide mummy" but we had to get home for dinner and bed. I'm sure we'll be back again this week.

And I just wanted to add that I took these photos with my iPhone - not bad?!

weekend away and back

I'm back from my weekend with the girls in Hoboken. We had a wonderful time, catching up on all our news, eating, drinking and laughing. It is such a good feeling to reconnect. It was a beautiful weekend in New York. Here is a photo from Hoboken looking across to Manhattan.On Saturday night we all got ready - see photo below - and then Carrie met us at the PATH. We went to Pipa for dinner then a show at the Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport. Jackie made our reservations, Jenn was our host and we all had a great time. More photos to come in another post. Although it is good to be away and have some time with friends it is great to be home and see the boys and Grant. We went to a new restaurant in Reston Town Center for dinner tonight. There are so many new places opening in Reston it is turning into a bit more of a "town center" - perhaps the suburbs are getting more liveable!

Mummy's Office

A some of you may know for a busy mum with two kids Miranda is pretty responsive to both email and updating this blog. The reason for this is that she has turned the kitchen into her home office so she can cook dinner, update the blog and surf the web all at the same time.

To help enable this the boys decided to surprise her this weekend with a new laptop stand to replace the Post-it pad she previously used to prop up her laptop.

Welcome home mummy and thanks for the Internet recipes.

Lunch in the Park

After Cameron's swimming class we spent some time at the park and had a picnic. It was a beautiful day and the boys looked very cute in their little dugout.

Boys Weekend II

Cameron's new favorite sport is now bowling. I took the boys bowling Friday afternoon and since then every time I ask them what they want to do Cameron's immediate answer is bowling. To be fair he was actually pretty good and scored 121 on the first game. He became less interested in the second where Jamie scored 123. As you probably guessed they do not actually bowl, rather they lift the bowling ball to a rail from which they push the bowling ball. But they don't know they difference and now they both think they are expert bowlers. Certainly they put me to shame.

weekend away

This is a photo of Washington Street in Hoboken. I'll have to try to take some pictures myself this weekend because I don't think this really shows how wonderful Hoboken can be. It is full of brownstones and interesting apartment buildings. I'm going to stay with my friends that I don't get to see very often since I moved down to Virginia. We have tickets for a show on Saturday night, dinner reservations at our favourite restaurant and plan to just hang out and chat the rest of the time - perfect! Jenn is kind enough to have all 7 of us staying in her apartment!

On the flip side - boys weekend! Grant is looking after the boys this weekend and they're really excited.

This is where I found the photo - http://kassady-nyc2006.buzznet.com/user/photos/?id=13067211

wednesday morning

Cameron watching something funny on tv.

Jamie practices his angry face - with a cowboy hat on, of course.

mirror, mirror off the wall

We have been in our house for almost 2 years and the first project I wanted to deal with when we moved in was the mirrored hallway. Well, it has taken a little longer than I'd like but finally today the mirrors came off the wall. No more visitors will be shocked by their reflections the moment they walk in our house.

This is the "before" picture with our hallway mirror wall.
And here is the "after" without offending mirrors - yeah!

puzzles

Puzzles are Jamie's favourite thing to do at the moment. Here he is with a trucks puzzle. It has 4 trucks and he likes to put them together, take them apart and start all over again. We also have fun with our alphabet puzzle - thanks Deb! - and a big fire engine puzzle - thanks Auntie Donna! I haven't brought out the big barn puzzle but I think we'll be doing that one this afternoon.

tagged

I was tagged by Christina to write 7 quirky things about myself.
Here we go:
* I'm always trying to be on time. This is difficult with two little boys who don't have any concept of time. We're often 15 mins early or 30 mins late.
* If I have something important that I don't want to lose then I put it in a "safe" place. I'm always forgetting where the safe places are because they change. I tend to lose important things a lot.
* I have 2 children but 4 strollers. I told Cameron this morning that we were going to sell our BOB stroller and he cried real tears. I have a son who clearly understands his mummy. I don't really want to sell it but it doesn't make sense to keep it since we never use it.
* I'm cooking during the week using Six O'clock Scramble. My friend Deb, Christina's sister, introduced me to this wonderful service. Even though I am vegetarian I made salmon for the first time last week and chicken this week. I think once a week is enough for a non-veggie dish. No, I didn't eat it but Grant was happy!
* I save lots of things. I tend to have a big clear out once in a while but I am quite sentimental about things. I'm a money saver too. Although I enjoy a good splurge I have always been a saver and worried about not being able to pay the rent or bail myself out of a difficult situation. I need rainy day money to feel secure.
* I can't have my eyebrows waxed. I had it done again last year just to test and my eyes swelled up like big tomatoes and stayed that way for about a week. It is not worth it. I am happy with my eyebrows just the way they are.
*I don't know seven other people with blogs to tag.

letter and number of the week

Now we are into full swing at preschool the boys are learning their letters, numbers and colours with an "of the week" theme. This week Jamie is doing the number 2 and the colour red. Cameron is doing the letter E. You can guess who made what above! Jamie is always so proud of the artwork that he makes at school. I think Cameron's class gets lots of teacher help with their projects!

In Cameron's class they have a show and tell on Thursday and Friday where the kids have to take into school an object that starts with the letter of the week. They have to talk about the object and what they know about it. This is our homework every week! Tomorrow Cameron is taking in "Elmer the Elephant" book. I think Deb gave it to Jamie but both boys enjoy the story so I thought it was a good bet. I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.